I was thinking this morning, that’s the smell you may have noticed, sort of like hot grease and slipping belts, about the wealth of knowledge we have these days. Even armed with that, we still do not know everything about everything. New understandings, new discoveries, new models, will still tend to show us just how much we do not yet know about that which we may know a little.

I often see fallacious thinking along the lines of “we don’t know everything about “x”, therefore “x” should be avoided/ridiculed/left alone/ or sarcastically laughed off with a hardy har har. And I believe, that every little thing in our daily lives is based on what we know about every little situation, we encounter in our lives. How what we know affects our decisions, is based on personal experience, a few things we may have heard (which should be at least deemed plausible before we use in a decion making process,) and whatever study we have done on the matter. That’s it, it’s all we have to go by.

There is nothing wrong about living our lives thusly. But when we are faced with new knowledge that counters the things we thought we knew, we have to now base our decisions on the upgraded model. And… “There’s Nothing Wrong With That!”

What got me thinking, and again I apologize for the smell, I don’t think all that often, the gears are a tad dry, was… I overheard some asinine Faux News moron somehwere, dissing Dr. Fauci, because of some statements he made early on in the Covid crisis. He made statements based on the knowledge available at the time. Those statements were later contradicted as new evidence, new knowledge, came in. And our ass backward, fallacially wealthy simpletons at Faux News, believe that changing our stance based on new information, is somehow ridiculous.

When in fact, it is the best way for us to all make decisions. When we learn new things about things we thought we knew something about, we should base our future decisions with that new information in mind. Not doing so, is a sure sign, your logic chip, if you have one, is malfunctioning!

When I was a kid, I acquired a pack of firecrackers. Well, several packs of firecrackers. I did what comes naturally to kids, I went about lighting and tossing my firecrackes as the notion hit me. I learned in the process that most firecracker fuses will burn at a fairly steady rate. I learned that some firecrackers had noticicably faster fuses, and one should be alert to that possibility. That is, be ready to get rid of it quick! One day, I came upon a firecracker with a short fuse. That was the day that I learned some firecrackes have really, really, fast fuses. I lit the fuse and it went ssBOOM!

I didn’t lose any fingers, but I did gain some new knowledge that has helped me in all of my fireworks enjoyment through the years. And all I can say is, if you haven’t figured out yet, about how to incorporate the things you have learned, into your life adventures, you haven’t lit enough damn firecrackers!

Being able to apply similar logic to the rest of your life decisions, ought to at least be the minimum standard for having children. If you don’t understand what a fallacy is, you haven’t even learned how to think yet. Let alone, are you ready to start having children!

It’s not stupid, it’s not suspicious, it’s not ridiculous, it’s not embarrassing, it’s not somehow dubious, to modify your understanding of the things, you think you know, when you learn more on the subject. If your opinion is contrary to that, the problem is not with someone who used experience, logic, and new information, to change their view. The problem is you!

Most of my blog friends are very much aware of what a fallacy is. For some lone internet wanderer who may have found their way here. This link will enlighten you:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies

Oh! And if you are wondering, which fallacy our Faux News idiot was using, it seems to me to be a combination of a few, but for the most part, it is the Poisoning the Well Fallacy. Mixed in with a bit of Ad Hominem and an Appeal to Motive. A misguided attack, because a man changed his opinion due to new information. This situation really should have its own formal fallacy. “The Faux News Fallacy.”

You learn what fallacies are, you won’t be watching Faux News much anymore…